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I think Randy Schmidt wrote in an interview once about hearing Interpretations when it first came out in a record store when you could go in a booth and hear an album with headphones. He remembered being moved to tears hearing it, probably in part due to this gorgeous gem being buried for so many years and having a part of Karen's soul feel like it's being exposed more.
I understand your points but ICBGAILY is one of my favorites and I can understand your comment but to me it does not negate the song. It’s one of the reason that I Love Horizon!Hush is very pretty and inoffensive but I rarely play it. I like the supreme mellowness of Karen's vocal, and I like the smooth funkyness of the sax but that's about it. The arrangement is actually interesting musically but I suppose the reason it falls a little flat for so many of us is it just feels a tremendous waste of Richard and Karen's talents at that time.
CBGAILY is very pretty too. I think the verses are gorgeous, but I never felt the chorus melodically lived upto the promise of the verses, and the key changes felt incongruent - all excepting the much cited 'devil in the deep blue sea' conclusion. But Karen's delivery is stunning and to other lesser artists it may be considered a classic. But Horizon probably only needed Love Me For What I Am and another contrasting choice in place of Caught, though it gets my vote in the poll.
On the thread for the album, "A Kind of Hush", there's a lot of talk at the moment about the hit potential of various songs from the LP and the performance of the actual singles.
I just had a look to see which songs were keeping Carpenters' single, "There's A Kind of Hush (All Over the World)" from rising higher on the American Top 40 the week it peaked. On April 26th, 1976, the songs above 'A Kind Of Hush', (and there were one or two biggies that have forged their way into history), were:-
Number 12:- Carpenters, 'There's A Kind of Hush'. 11:- Captain & Tennille, 'Lonely Night (Angel Face)', 10:- Elvin Bishop, 'Fooled Around and Fell In Love', 9:- Queen, 'Bohemian Rhapsody', 8:- Peter Frampton, 'Show Me the Way', 7:- John Sebastian, 'Welcome Back', 6:- Dr. Hook, 'Only Sixteen', 5:- The Commodores, 'Sweet Love', 4:- The Sylvers, 'Boogie Fever', 3:- Maxine Nightingale, 'Right Back Where We Started From', 2:- Belamy Brothers, 'Let Your Love Flow', and NUMBER 1:- Johnnie Taylor, 'Disco Lady'.
My memory of the American Top 40 in 1976 is that there were a lot of light, easy-listening songs, not that different in genre from Carpenters' 'There's A Kind of Hush', at the top of the charts throughout the year, and there were. However, the week that 'There's A Kind of Hush' peaked, around half of the songs above it just happened to be rock-edged songs at the top, whether ballads or up-tempo, (apart from 'Lonely Nights', 'Only Sixteen', 'Let Your Love Flow', 'Sweet Love', 'Boogie Fever' and 'Disco Lady').
Of the songs above 'There's A Kind of Hush' on the charts that week, I particularly like 'Lonely Night', 'Fooled Around and Fell in Love', 'Bohemian Rhapsody', 'Show Me the Way' and 'Welcome Back' and, help me, 'Boogie Fever' and I don't mind 'Right Back Where We Started From' and 'Let Your Love Go'. I usually like soul, but I don't think much of the Commodores' or Jonnie Taylor's songs.
I think you can see why all of the Top 11 peaked above 'There's A Kind of Hush'. Each song has more character, insistence and grit. I think that anyone could be forgiven if they said Carpenters' offering was a bit bland and characterless, devoid of highs, lows and excitement, with Karen almost singing without expression, although I loved the song in its day. It was definitely my favourite song on the chart at the time.
I still can’t believe the title track which is weak as hell gets to a solid #12, but a sparkling gem like “All You Get FLIALS” only ONE year later stalls at 35. The public was seriously way to fickle.
I’ve always wondered that too. What a difference a year made.
I will reiterate what I wrote on another thread:
Nothing wrong with the Carpenters recording of
There's a Kind of Hush.
Take that vinyl-45, crank up the volume, listen intently....there is a lot happening in this terrific song.
Yes, I love All You Get From Love is a Love Song, for different reason,
but, referring to There's a Kind of Hush as..... "weak as h_ll"..... is just not accurate.
The chart position of the respective singles signifies virtually nothing except "mass appeal."
I never considered Close To You as a "strong" song, and yet it went to #1....
However, I have maintained, since 1976, that the arrangement that Richard gives to the song is BRILLIANT.
That being said... just this morning I published the music video for "(There's a Kind of Hush) All Over the World" on YouTube.
Here's why the video I published is a little different!
- The source video is the Japanese Yesterday Once More DVD. The Gold DVD has a noticeable trail on all of the videos. YOM does not have this trail. If you take the Gold DVD and press pause randomly, chances are you will see a trailing image. I don't know for certain how/why this phenomenon happens, but it does not happen on the YOM DVD.
- I de-telecined the source video (i.e. reversed the 3-2 pull down) and set the video output to a variable frame rate. You will notice on the DVD version, the video moves for 4 frames, then pauses for 1 frame, and this pattern repeats throughout the whole video because the source is film.
- The final product ran at an average of 24.5 frames per second (which explains why the video sounds fast). So, in Adobe Premiere Pro, I slowed the video down to 24 frames per second at a constant frame rate.
- The film grain + tape meant a very green-gray grain, which I did not like. I made some minor brightness and color corrections.
- The montage of single covers at the end did not run at a constant pace; I fixed that and matched it up with the beat.
Cheers!